No Soup For You Today!

"I live on good soup, not on fine words."
Moliere (French Playwright, 1622-1673)         

Soup's On! French onion soup.

            I know all you people in the states are going to be laughing at me, but I have a hankering for soup. Yes, I do realize that it’s 60 degrees in New York City. And my mother just called me to say that she’s been playing golf for the nth day straight…in Chicago.

But here in Copenhagen, the date says spring…but the weather? Let’s put it this way…we haven’t packed our winter jackets away. And my three-week cold from hell hasn’t gone away either, so soup it is, but not any soup…French onion soup.

I’d like to think of French onion soup akin to the Gogo Yubari[1] from Kill Bill Vol. 1. You think it’s going to be nice light and easy, and then, BAM! Knocks you out with 2 for 1 punch of umami-caramel goodness.   

            Why is it so damn good? Well, for starters, it has to do with the onions. The carmelization of onions give it the bittersweet base. The beef broth gives some savoriness to the base. Some alcohol balances the sweetness. And the cheese crouton adds the final umami punch. It’s a flavor no-brainer.

            The base of ANY good French onion soup is the caramelization of onions. And lest you think that caramel was only for apples, dessert & Halloween, you’re on notice. Browning on French Fries? That’s caramelization. Roasted sweet potatoes? That’s also caramelization. Along with the Maillard reaction[2], it’s one of the critical chemical reactions in cooking that is truly transformative.  

            Caramelization at the heart of it is simply the chemical breakdown of sugar into new compounds via pyrolysis[3], otherwise known as heat & chemistry. Any sugar will do: fructose (fruit sugar), lactose (milk sugar), sucrose (beet & cane sugars – the white stuff you buy at the grocery), or maltose (the sugar in barley that is used in making beer). Sugar, unlike proteins, is incredibly stable – they will not oxidize, denature, coagulate…basically all the chemical reactions that spoil food. But the one thing that gets sugar moving? Heat. By heating sugar, the water is evaporated out of the sugar and starts to break down creating new compounds that contribute to browning, bitterness, aromas, sourness and nuttiness.

            But it takes a lot of heat to get that reaction going. Fructose (in fruits like apples, bananas, pineapples, etc) and glucose (grape sugar) will caramelize at relatively low temperatures, 220°F and 300°F, respectively, due to their chemical makeup (they have free electrons to donate, thus making it easier to react to heat). Sucrose, on the other hand, is a much more complex (it’s basically a fructose molecule attached to a glucose molecule via their free electrons) and much more difficult to break apart – thus the higher temperature needed to start caramelization, around 340°F.

            But what does this have to do with onions? Yes, onions raw have a distinct sharpness (that’s from the volatility of sulfur compounds in onions), but their high sugar content, in the form of fructose, is what we want them for in French onion soup.  And the characteristic nutty, rich flavor is dependent upon caramelization and the Maillard process. But this process is not a straightforward one. Because onions are 75% water, neither process can begin without the water being evaporated first. Only until the onions are “sweated” out, in which the onion cells burst and release their water, AND the temperature reaches around 220°F (the temperature at which fructose caramelizes) will both processes start.

            And that’s when you start to see browning in your onions. However, the process is not a quick one. The key with caramelizing onions is really going low and slow. Can you speed it up? Not really. Why? Turn up the heat, and your onions will char-raw and you will not pass go or collect 200. You will have to start all over again. You can change the pH of your onions, by adding baking soda (alkaline) to speed up the Maillard reaction, but it will give a chemical aftertaste. That’s no good either.

            But you can add a pinch of salt. Why? Salt leeches water out of cells and that will help speed up the evaporation process. Some people add sugar as well, but beyond sweetening the onions a tad bit, it will do very little to speed up the process, mainly because sucrose (table sugar is sucrose) requires more energy (heat) to caramelize thus increasing the possibility that your onions might burn.

            So what’s a time strapped person to do? Sorry…there are no short cuts here. It’s going to take you a full 1-2 hours, dependent upon the amount, (and if you go the Thomas Keller route, another 3 more) for onions to caramelize properly. Anyone that tells you that it’s going to take a shorter amount of time is fooling you. You are going to have to have some serious time on your hands. But the good news is that once you’ve made the onions, the rest of the process is pretty simple. You just need some booze to deglaze (I’m partial to cognac, sherry or calvados), good beef stock (or if you don’t have that, get some low sodium vacuum packed stock[4]), some Gruyere and stale bread and you are good to go. Even though you aren’t in France, at least you can eat like you are. And that is worth 3 hours of anyone’s time.

French Onion Soup

One more note – the more aged your Gruyere, the better. The Gruyere gives the necessary counterbalance to all sweetness in the soup. Also, don’t freak out about the vinegar. It’s pretty traditional in France to add a touch to the soup to balance it out both the sugar and the fat from the cheese. And if you don’t believe me about the amount of time it takes to caramelize the onions…just look at the pictures.

Time 0. Onions straight into the pot.

20 Minutes. No browning, but a lot of sweating going on.

45 minutes. Still no caramelization.

 

 

 

 

Hour and 10 minutes. Ah! There's color!

We're at 1 hour and a half. Looking good.

2 hours. Finally. Freaking. DONE!

Serves 6-8 as a starter or 4 as a main course

4 tbs. butter

2 tbs. olive oil

8 large onions, thinly sliced into half moons

1 sprig of thyme

8 c. beef broth (preferably homemade)

¼ c. dry sherry

dash of calvados (if you don’t have any, any other good brandy or cognac is ok)

2 tbs. sherry vinegar (you can use balsamic as well)

8 slices of day-old good white bread (peasant bread or baguette are good choices)

1 clove of garlic, halved

6-8 oz of aged Gruyere, shredded

1. Heat butter and olive oil in a large heavy skillet or Dutch oven (NOT non-stick or cast iron) over medium-low heat. Add onions, pinch of salt, and cook until caramelized and deep brown, stirring often. If the onions stick to the bottom of the pan, add a dash of water, loosen onions (like deglazing a pan for sauce) and continue. This will take a minimum of 1 ½ hours…probably closer to 2 (see pictures).

2. Add sherry and scrape any browned bits off the bottom of the pan. If you are using a skillet, transfer onions to a stockpot (if you use a Dutch oven, you can just leave them in the pan). Add beef broth, thyme and sherry vinegar to onions. Turn up the heat to medium high and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, turn down heat and let soup simmer for 45 minutes.

3. In the meanwhile, rub cut sides of garlic on bread slices. Place in a 350F oven until toasted (it will take about 2-3 minutes).

4. Add calvados and check for seasoning (it will probably need a good pinch of salt). Ladle soup into ovenproof bowls, top with slice of bread (use 2 slices if you’re using a baguette-they’re small) and sprinkle cheese on top. Place under your oven broiler until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. Serve immediately.

Vegetarians: This soup can be made vegetarian by omitting beef broth and using vegetable broth instead.

NB: Just like anything else that is heated in an oven, the bowls are going to be PIPING hot as well as the soup inside it. Be VERY careful taking bowls out of the oven and please warn your guests that the bowls are very hot. We’re talking 3^rd degree burns here.

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[1] Just in case you haven’t remembered who this is, Gogo Yubari is the apprentice of O-ren Ishii. O-Ren is the Asian chick of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (played by Lucy Liu in the movie).

[2] It’s the nitrogen and sulfur in amino acids in meat that give cooked meat it’s distinctively “meaty” smell and flavor when heated, unlike sugars which are always a combination of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon.

[3] Pyrolysis is from the Greek, “pyr” for fire and “lysis” to separate.

[4] I’m not being picky for no reason. Canned stock has BPA (Bisphenol A) in their liners. Unless you want reproductive problems, stay away from the stuff. The vacuum packed stock has no BPA’s in it. Trader Joe’s makes a nice organic one that tastes reasonably good.

Where's the Beef? (Part II of Aging & Cooking Your Own Steak)

“Did you ever see the customers in health-food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They're dying, of course, but they look terrific.”           

-Bill Cosby, American Comedian

            What’s the point of having good quality beef if you can’t cook it? You’d be surprised how something that seems as intuitive as cooking a steak can be so puzzling to many. If you think that Fred Flintstone is the your model of cooking steaks, then you have a lot to learn (all anachronisms aside, Fred Flintstone probably was aging his meat because he didn’t have a proper meat locker in prehistoric Bedrock).

            In Part I of eating better beef, we went through the steps of aging your own meat. That was the easy part. The difficult part is yet to come – how to cook your meat.

You would think there is some universal rule to grilling a steak, but beyond getting your grill at an eyebrow burning 800F, there seems to be little consensus on the grilling debate. I was always taught to use a hot pan, room temperature steaks, and ALWAYS tongs, lest any precious juices come pouring out.

Apparently, Peter Luger, steakhouse extradoniaire, doesn’t play by those rules: They take a cold steak, stick it on the hot grill rack, sprinkle some salt on the steak. They apparently take it out when it’s still raw inside, cut into it, and then place it back into the broiler to finish cooking.

Morton’s, another well-known steakhouse, does it completely differently. Steaks are taken out an hour before grilling to warm up the steak’s interior so there isn’t a temperature differential when the steaks are being cooked. They are salted with the mysterious “Morton’s secret salt.” Then they are blasted in an 800F broiler to sear and finished off in a 400F oven.  And they must be rested – to insure the juices are reabsorbed into the meat.

And then there’s the Modernist Cuisine[1] way.[2] First, you sous vide[3] your steak for 45 minutes in a 130F water bath (for medium-rare). Then you go and sear your steaks in a super-hot cast iron pan, broiler, grill or torch. This seems very simple, until you realize that to do this properly, you need a proper vacuum sealer – which will cost you a couple of hundred dollars, and then a commercial sous vide machine that makes sure that the temperature of your water stays consistent – that piece of equipment will cost you around $1200 on the low end (a gazillion dollars on the high end). Add the price of a professional foodservice broiler/grill, that will set you back another 5000 bucks, and then…well you get the idea.[4]

 Ideally, we want a crusty outside and a juicy, tender inside. Well, biochemically, it’s actually really difficulty to get that steak.[5]  Why? Let me count the ways.

First, let’s start with the steak itself. While raw meat is delicious (steak tartare?), browning a steak[6] allows steak to really shine. When a steak is browned at high temperatures, the browning reaction – called the Maillard[7] reaction – sets in. At high temperatures, 250F plus, a carbohydrate molecule and amino acid molecule react with each other producing an unstable intermediate structure – a glycosalmine. This in turn forms more reactions that result in browning and “meaty” aromas. Because the amino acids contain sulfur and nitrogen, a multitude of compounds can be made that we associate with savory meats.

But those reactions, as mentioned above, only come about under specific conditions. If a pan is too cool, it will not have enough heat (energy) to trigger the Maillard reaction. In real terms, your meat will be cooked, but it won’t brown. Also, have you ever tried browning meat straight out of a marinade? It doesn’t brown well and instead you end up with steamed meat. That is because the Maillard reaction is requires enough heat to dry the surface area. Unless you have a commercial grill that can be heated to high heat, your meat never had a chance.

And then there is the undercooking-overcooking problem. Beyond browning, the most difficult aspect of getting a perfect steak is getting the inside cooked as well as the outside. The problem is that by the time the outside is seared and crusty, the inside could be either dry as a bone or caveman raw. The problem is due to the properties of meat when cooked. The temperature range in which meat is firm yet juicy is about 30F, between 120-150F.  In the earlier stages of cooking (around 120F), protein fibers coagulate and push out water molecules resulting in a firm and juicy steak done “rare” or “bleu.” In later stages of cooking, around 140F, the collagen in meat begins to denature, pushing out more liquid and becoming denser, resulting in a firm/chewy yet somewhat-juicy steak at medium.  But when you have a super-hot cooking surface, it takes just 3 minutes to exceed that range of temperatures, often resulting in overcooked steak.

How to avoid this? Look to the masters. By initially browning the outside at a high temperature and then cooking the rest at a lower temperature, one decreases the risk of either having char-raw meat or rubber boot by slowing down the cooking process. By giving meat more time to cook thoroughly to the proper internal temperature, one reduces the risk of overcooking.

This all sounds fine and good, but what is the home cook to do? Here’s the deal. You can do this at home, but it will take some thoughtfulness to get it just right. Here are the steps to do steakhouse at home:

Pre-trimmed aged steaks

1.                    Take your nicely aged steak (see post on meat aging) out and trim if needed off any off-colored pieces and shriveled bits (see picture below) about 2 hours before cooking. This allows the temperature at the middle of the steak to rise a bit so the steak is not ice cold when it hits the grill (this avoids char-raw steaks).

Post-trimed aged steak. Notice it's a bit smaller than above.

2.                    Pat your steak dry as thoroughly as you can. As mentioned above, the Maillard reaction needs a dry surface to do it’s magic. If it’s soggy, you’ll get steamed meat.

3.                    Preheat your oven with a rack (a cake rack works well) at 400F. If you don’t have a rack, you can use a baking sheet, but rack is better because it allows for the hot air to circulate evenly around your steak, insuring even cooking.

4.                    Heat a cast iron skillet on the highest heat possible. You know it is hot enough if the water sizzles immediately after you sprinkle it in the pan.

5.                    Coat the bottom of the pan with 1-2 tsp. of neutral vegetable oil – NOT olive oil (it’s smoking point is too low). I prefer rice bran oil because it’s neutral in taste and has a high smoking point.

6.                    Salt your steaks and place them on the pan. For steaks an inch thick, sear steaks for about 1-11/2 minutes on each side, turning once. For steaks 11/2 inch thick, do it for 2 minutes on each side. And for god sakes, use flat-sided tongs to turn the steaks, lest you pierce your meat and let precious juices run out.

Steaks after being seared. Notice the nice crust developed on top due to a hot pan.

7.                    Transfer your steaks to the oven and let them roast for about 6 minutes for 1-inch steaks or 8-9 minutes for 11/2-inch steaks for medium rare (130F internal temperature). Lessen the time by a minute or 2 for rare steaks.

8.                    Take steaks out of the oven and tent with foil for 3 minutes to let the juices re-absorb.

9.                    Eat.

There you have it. Steakhouse steak at home. You don’t need to spend too much money doing it – just a little bit of time and effort. And with steaks this good, you won’t need that red meat fix so often. You’ll eat well – and help save the earth and your health at the same time.

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[1] Just in case you don’t follow 5-volume, $600, 50 pound cookbooks, Modernist Cuisine is a book by Nathan Myhrvold (with Chris Young & Maxime Billet) that is a reference book on the science of contemporary cooking. You want to know how they make those crazy foods at WD-50 and El Bulli? Here’s were you find out how they do it.

[2] I don’t have the cash to get the set, thus I am forced to suss out their technique through Amazon’s search function.  Illegal? Uh…not sure.

[3] Sous vide is a method of cooking in which foods are vacuum-sealed (think TV-infomercial Food Saver) and then cooked in a low-temperature water bath. The point is to keep food from oxidizing, losing juices and overcooking.

[4] Melissa Clark of the New York Times, has a nice piece on trying to do Modernist Cuisine at home. Her recipe for grilled rib-eye can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/dining/seared-frozen-rib-steaks-recipe.html?_r=1

[5] OK – I am one of those steak eaters who likes her steak rare to just-barely medium rare with a good crust. I am not going to give a lecture to those who do the “well-done” (aka shoe leather) bit. But the advice here is relevant regardless of how you like your steak cooked.

[6] While all browning is cooking, not all cooking is browning. Yes, cooking for meats is defined by the denaturing of proteins – that is the proteins change structure due to heat. Think of it this way: if you put a steak into boiling water, the steak will  “cook” – but it won’t be tasty. It will just be a grayish lump of chewy meat. 

[7] The Maillard reaction is named after the French physician Louis Camille Maillard who discovered this process in 1912.  Maillard reactions require both a carbohydrate (either a sugar or starch) and an amino acid. In the case of steak, it would be the amino acids attached to meat proteins. Although it is often confused with caramelization, the two processes are chemically different (but not necessarily mutually exclusive). While caramelization also is a browning reaction, it only happens in sugars (technically speaking it’s the pyrolization of sugar).